Alongside experimentation with video content, Spotify is introducing original podcasts, most notably Amy Schumer’s 3 Girls, 1 Keith, which launched at the end of June 2018. With 75 million Premium subscribers, Spotify leads the market for paid on-demand music streaming. However, Apple currently dominates the growing podcast market, which is estimated at 73 million monthly users—a 5% increase from 2016, according to a 2018 study by Edison Research.
Original podcasts like Schumer’s add a new dimension to the Spotify brand, putting it in a position to compete directly with Apple for a share of podcast listeners. “We thought, ‘let’s get audio right,’” says Holt. “We are evolving from just music to non-music audio as well.”
Fashion-tainment
In the midst of these platform crossovers, streaming providers are teaming up with leaders in the fashion and beauty industries in an effort to enhance user engagement.
Apple Music recently launched a show hosted by newly appointed Louis Vuitton men’s designer Virgil Abloh. The Beats 1 radio show, launched on the Televised Radio channel, is part curated playlist and part podcast. Described by Abloh as an “audio mood board,” it features new music alongside classic tracks, interspersed with discussions on art, design, fashion and music. “Music has an amazing ability to bring people together, and I couldn’t think of a better format to catalog all the multidisciplinary work I do under one umbrella,” the designer explains in an interview with Vogue.